B.C. chiefs have land claims agenda for Harper meeting

Peter O'Neil, Vancouver Sun01.10.2013

The national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Shawn Atleo, adjusts his glasses as he responds to a question during a news conference Thursday in Ottawa to talk about Friday’s meeting of the prime minister and national aboriginal leaders.

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OTTAWA — B.C.’s aboriginal leaders, considered among the most practical and pro-development in the country, are hoping Friday’s meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper will help revive stalled land claim negotiations on the West Coast.

The grassroots Idle No More protest movement and the fast by Attawapiskat, Ont., Chief Theresa Spence — she has refused solid food since Dec. 11 — combined to force Harper to agree to the single meeting with national aboriginal leaders.

Idle No More and Spence have been criticized for lacking clear goals. Among their demands is a call for the Harper government to abandon major components of his legislative agenda — including changes to the Indian Act and environmental protection.

Spence has been ridiculed by some commentators for calling on Queen to personally intervene to force Gov. Gen. David Johnston to participate in the talks between Harper and aboriginal leaders.

B.C.’s first nations leaders, who play a key role in Canada’s aboriginal leadership, are hoping Friday’s meeting can at somehow jump-start the land claim process that began here just over two decades ago.

It has led to only two treaties on the West Coast despite more than half a billion dollars in negotiating costs for first nations – money advanced to more than 50 first nations in the form of loans or grants, primarily from the federal government but also from Victoria.

Aboriginal leaders, frustrated that last January’s summit with Harper failed to yield major advances, want Harper to at the least agree to an annual meeting with national first nations’ leaders.

Harper’s direct engagement, they say, could perhaps break the inertia in B.C. that was criticized last summer by a Conservative-dominated Senate committee report. The report, the initiative of now-retired Tory Gerry St. Germain, criticized the government’s rigid “take-it-or-leave-it” approach to negotiations that gives federal treaty negotiators little flexibility.

“We need the direction from the prime minister’s office to set up a concrete process with tangible timelines and results that respect and recognize the autonomy of each of our individual nations,” Jody Wilson-Raybould, B.C. regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations, told The Vancouver Sun Thursday.

There cannot be a “one-size-fits-all approach to the resolution of the land question, which is what we have right now.”

At a news conference Thursday, Wilson-Raybould said the Harper government’s aggressive push to develop natural resources across Canada won’t succeed without aboriginal cooperation.

“The prime minister has stated he’s seeking to unlock the economic potential in this country — $650 billion dollars of investment into our territories,” she said. “Our nations stand in the way of that. We have to meet. We have to have these discussions.”

Wilson-Raybould and AFN National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo, also a British Columbian, are among the group of aboriginal leaders to meet with Harper at his offices here.

Atleo said at an Ottawa news conference Thursday that Spence’s actions and the Idle No More movement, which has included social media pressure, demonstrations and other forms of activism across the country, are inspiring both leaders and the grassroots to push for fundamental change.

“This is the moment of reckoning and the tipping point,” he said.

He denounced federal budget bills that have weakened a number of federal environmental protection laws.

Grand Chief Edward John, a member of the B.C. First Nations Summit executive who is in Ottawa for the talks, called on Harper to follow U.S. President Barack Obama’s lead in government-first nation relations. Obama holds an annual meeting with American chiefs.

Former Liberal Indian affairs minister Robert Nault, now a consultant for a number of first nations across Canada, said Harper should – but probably won’t – agree to regular meetings.

He also recommended that the federal government take advantage of the willingness of many B.C. first nations to strike modern self-government and resource-sharing agreements.

“It’s my view B.C. is way further advanced in its ability to advance on the legislative front, to look at treaty relationships,” he said.

Nault, when he was minister under Jean Chretien from 1999 to 2003, tried to pass legislation bringing in self-government provisions for first nations. But the bill was opposed by many chiefs, especially those outside B.C., and Paul Martin killed the bill when he became prime minister.

“If I had to do it over again I probably wouldn’t have tried to bring in governance legislation that was universal. I would have probably tried to do it regionally and B.C. would have been a great place to start.”

There have been only two final B.C. agreements ratified since the treaty process began in 1992, with the Tsawwassen First Nation and with the Maa-Nulth First Nations on Vancouver Island.

Six of the remaining first nations in the treaty process are in the final stages of negotiating treaties, according to the B.C. Treaty Commission.

But B.C. is seen as one of the most advanced provinces in Canada in terms of Crown-first nations relations because of revenue-sharing agreements outside the treaty process, involving mines near first nations.

They include the New Afton copper-gold mine near Kamloops, which began production in July, and the Mount Milligan copper-gold mine near Prince George, expected to begin production this year.

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B.C. chiefs have land claims agenda for Harper meeting

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